Introduction
Spend Analysis is provided on the Overview Tab. Spend Analysis is a powerful tool for understanding how you spend and how this compares to previous periods. So let's dive in.
Spend Analysis vs Spending Plan?
Accounts and Time Periods set up for Spend Analysis
Topic Area
Spend Analysis
Relevant to users on:
Money Dashboard Neon
Not sure which App you are on?
If you are unsure if you are on Money Dashboard Classic or Money Dashboard Neon? You can find that information here
Spend Analysis vs Spending Plan?
We have 2 main tools to help you manage your finances. They fulfill two different functions:
- Spending Plan uses scheduled transactions and budgets to look at the current period and into the future
- Spending Analysis (the Overview tab) helps you analyse your current and historic spending/budgets
- They work together to give you the most comprehensive view of your money.
Accounts and Time Periods set up for Spend Analysis
Before you get started you need to make sure you have the right filters set up. There are filters you can:
- Accounts: You can choose to have all or a selection of the accounts you have connected on Money Dashboard. We recommend including the account you receive your income into, as well as where you do your regular spending.
- Time Period: On the mobile app we will present your spend analysis based on your paycycle. On web you have more options to customise the date range you want to look at and how far back you want to look.
- Categories: You can choose to exclude certain categories from your analysis. A good example of why this can be handy is to prevent double counting if you are transferring money between your accounts and do not want this to be considered as extra income or expenditure. More information about handling inter-account transfers and credit card repayments can be found here.
The Key Features
You have 2 key features. These are displayed slightly differently on mobile and desktop
- Breakdown: For the current Time Period you have chosen this will show you your incoming, outgoing and savings by categories
- Trends: This is the bar graph that compares the current time period against a certain number of previous periods of equal width. On mobile this is fixed by paycycle and by swiping right you will be presented with analysis of the previous paycycle.
Analysis from Breakdown Tab
The breakdown tab has 2 components
- This is a donut chart (Not seen on Mobile): For the time period you have selected what is your income, outgoing and savings
- Breakdown by Categories: Your spending based on your categorisation is also provided here to show you how much you have spent in certain areas.
You can use this tab for understanding how your spending is distributed across different areas. Here you can work out where you overspend, if you could save more and where you may need to cut back.
Analysis of the Trend Tab
The trend tab has 2 main components. You also need to decide how many time period to compare against by selecting the compare against dropdown in filters.
- Gives you a bar graph of incoming, outgoing and savings for the current period against as many time periods as you selected.
- (Not seen on Mobile) Gives you this information in tabular format
Viewing this time period might not give you the full picture. We use the trend tab to get an idea for how are spending varies and what we might want to expect going forward.